Nothing is environmentally safe these days, and fish, both wild and domestically produced, are not immune. European Union fisheries ministers meet regularly to grapple with the tug-of-war between conservation and the demands of fishermen, who want an increase in catch quotas.
But stocks are in dangerous decline and global warming is also taking its toll. While fishing accounts for less than 1% of the Union's gross domestic product, it is critical to certain countries and maritime Greece counts among them. The government is trying to ameliorate some of the local fishing industry's problems by injecting much-needed funds to upgrade the sector.
A six-year operational plan for Greek fisheries has been set at nearly 500 million euros for the period 2000-2006, with 236 million euros coming from EU structural funds. "The program began to be implemented in February 2002," says Yorgos Katis, a biologist at the state Directorate for Aquaculture and Inland Waters with measures for aquaculture, small-scale fishing and other related sectors, like public works, ports and packing that will all get a share of the funding.
From small to big fish
"Small-scale fishing, employing the typical Greek fishing boat of between 5 and 10 metres, makes up more than 90% of the Greek fleet," says Yorgos Payiatas of World Wildlife Fund Greece. But these often-isolated fishermen only stand to gain a sliver of the direct governmental or EU support as "just 0.12% of the total expenditure under the operational program for fisheries is directly allocated to the small-scale sector," Payiatas notes.
Katis, however, says that the government has a common fisheries policy with added indirect measures, such as encouraging small-scale fishermen to abandon their boats and avoid over-fishing, or else modernize their vessels by purchasing equipment that is more discriminating in the kinds of fish caught (a major problem is the so-called waste fish or by-catch of species that are discarded).
In direct funding, aquaculture, or domestic fish-farming, receives a much bigger slice of the pie. According to Katis, "we give 23-24% of the funds to aquaculture - 115 million euros, which includes the EU share of 36 million euros". Payiatas, however, believes the disproportionate direct funding still leads to an unfair advantage over traditional fishermen. "We consider this structural support [for aquaculture] to be very high, largely because of private sector pressure," he says.
Of fish farms and pellets
So should traditional wild-stock fishermen just switch to domestic fish-farming? And is this a sound alternative? Greek seas are relatively clean so taking up domestic fish-farming is indeed a lucrative option. The industry also meets a growing consumer demand for seafood especially following recent red meat scares.
Aquaculture, mainly sea bass and bream, grew eleven-fold between 1989 and 1999 and at around 73,000 tones, now reaches nearly half the nations fisheries production. But there are ethical and environmental considerations that are falling by the wayside in the rush for profit.
Fish-food in the form of pellets, for instance, must be bought from a supplier or locally produced. It takes two to three times as much wild fish to make fish-food for their domestic cousins, thus putting even more pressure on the wild stock they were meant to save. Raising food such as shrimp that could be used to directly feed people rather than using it to feed domestic fish is another issue, while using agricultural products to feed the fish, considered the best alternative, has another problem for wary consumers: it could be genetically modified.
Domesticated fish are also highly susceptible to environmental changes. They must be vaccinated against disease and if they get sick, are treated with antibiotics. All this, of course, gets in the human food chain and fish are capable of transferring toxic substances, pathogenic micro-organisms and parasites to humans.
Caged environment
"The Greek industry's aquaculture cages are considered an environmentally-friendly variety, but are often placed too close to the seabed, which results in a concentration of waste and fish-food pollution spawning new algae species and attracting fish that would otherwise not be there," says WWFs Payiatas. Local communities are also not happy with the newly muddied waters, especially in tourist areas.
"We do give money to aquaculture units to protect the environment, sea and sediments," Katis says. We give about 45% of the whole aquaculture budget for environmental upgrades. "If they make improvements, they take 55% for environmental upgrades to ISO standards as well as for their production," he says.
"But environmental concerns are largely addressed by the fish-farmers themselves," says Katis. Fish are sensitive to pollution, so fish-farmers have an incentive to protect the environment. Implementing the fishing industry measures should at least address some of the problems faced by Greek fishermen and aquaculturers. Whether they will lead to a sustainable solution instead of the quota system currently in place remains to be seen.
